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Arts and Craftiness

07 September 2008

Perhaps my fifteen minutes of fame has yet to arrive. Or perhaps, like a cat has nine lives, I'm destined to experience repeated quarter hours over the course of my life and career. This time my fame comes from controversy (who's surprised?).

This weekend, Burlington held its annual ART HOP and through a series of unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate?) events, I found myself at the center of an old debate: What is art? Is it decoration? And when a business agrees to host an art show, do they have final editorial license (or in my case ultimate veto?)

This was my first (and likely last ART HOP) and I signed up to exhibit two pieces - one for the outdoor juried show, and one for the indoor juried show. Through a clerical error, ART HOP assigned me an additional exhibition space to hang a personal show.

I found this out late last week when they phoned to tell me the time and place to drop off my artwork.

"Um, Mr. Art Organizer...I didn't sign up for a show."

"You didn't? Oh."

"Does this mean my name is printed in the program as showing somewhere?"

"Yes, but we could put up a sign that says you're not showing if you like."

"I don't think so. I'll have something for you as soon as possible."

So I put together a show of 24 postcard sized images of mostly bucolic postcardy stuff. The ferry returning for the evening on Lake Champlain. Scottish Highland cows lined up and staring into my lens. Macros of flowers etc. All benignly beautiful and uncontroversial except for the few images of dolls and mannequins I slipped in for my own good pleasure.

Three of the images were of a snow covered doll.

A day after I hung the show, and two days before the public exhibition officially began, I received a phone call from the organizers.

"Kimberley, I'm afraid I have some bad news....The business owner has asked that you take down your show."

"WHAT?! WHY?"

"She said that she didn't appreciate that you hung pictures of 'dead baby dolls' in her space."

"Baby dolls can't die because they were never alive."

"Well, she doesn't want them there."

"Ok."

He offered to let me move the show to SEABA headquarters. The problem was (other than the obvious) that I didn't really have time to move the show and anyway WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO?

So I thought about it and ranted about it some and thought about it some more. I decided to take the show down and wear it on the main day of the festival. I made a poster with an enlargement of the offending image that said, "Does This Photo Offend YOU?"

I also made fifty copies of the image with that slogan and my contact info that I gave out to people at the ART HOP and friends who wanted to support my cause.

The two local papers interviewed me. The 7Days blogged about it at BLURT (their staff blog) and the Burlington Free Press published it in this Sunday's paper (today).

For the record, I did not want to make this a pissing contest between me and SEABA or the business owner but the papers and their readership are sure trying to make it into that.

All I want is for this to stimulate dialog about how to avoid this type of situation in future. If I'd just sat still and done nothing about it - the business owner would have had the advertising she'd signed up for, the traffic funneled to her site and I would have had my name in the program with a blank space where my art should be simply because the host had a reaction to my work (isn't art supposed to illicit a response? Any response is good, right?).

People are pretty pissed that I didn't allow the situation to be swept under the rug, but I'm sticking to my guns (again, who's surprised?). I feel I represent all artists and that the business owner represents all business owners.

The question is, who has editorial control to decide what is and what is not appropriate for showing at businesses? What is art? Are these art shows, craft fairs or is this plain old fashioned business as usual?

Quixotically,XXKHT

”Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway .” -- Eleanor Roosevelt

15 August 2008

After tripping over this thing for the past two months, whilst looking everywhere for the right pieces to spell out my message, the thing is finally hung. At great peril no less. With a rickety borrowed ladder and a dying borrowed drill, I stuck it up on the side of Upstairs Antiques on Flynn Ave just in time.

It actually looks better hung in it's spot than it did on my floor (thank goodness).

22 July 2008

I entered a local Foodie Photo Contest and won second place with my entry "Spiracle"
and my third entry "Cockalot"
was featured on Mistress Maeve's blog at the paper (neither she nor I can figure out why they didn't use the shot....)

02 July 2008

After a marathon of work and social activities, ahead of me these next FIVE days lay whatever summer delights I can fill them with.

Of course I've a longish list of not so fun activities - all just as neglected as my musings on PYtB, but there are plenty-o-fun pursuits to choose from as well.

This week represents the last call to put up strawberries, as the local harvest is in decline. I've ordered a flat of local berries and plan to make jam and freeze a few to enjoy in the depths of winter - a delicious taste of summer's sweetness held in reserve like a culinary time capsule.

If I had to classify this summer in one word - what stands out the most is MUSIC. I've stumbled upon the most incredible new group of friends - mostly musicians.

Through the kind host of Anna and Dave' who brew their own beer and invite their huge group of artistic friends to taste it on Wednesday afternoons at what they've dubbed "The Hump Day Brewery, they've opened up a whole new world to me. Not only is the beer incredible - always a new flavor - anything from beet, to heather or dandelion and last week's spectacular hop free english style ale, that tasted more like a beer ade than a classic beer - So refreshing! So talented both of them.

Every Hump Day the people gather at their place, and after a beer or two someone will begin playing an instrument, and then another will join and often many others. I've seen up to 15 musicians jamming at once of every caliber playing anything from folk/rock covers to pure unadulterated improv. I have even joined in with a washboard and bottle cap - and I've been known to tap my beer glass with a lighter or whatever - the music is positively contagious.

Through them I've met my new dear friend Christine - the dynamo that spends what appears to be every waking hour trying to make a difference and connect people with similar inclinations. She got me involved in helping out the Intervale by taking pics during their Thursday evening concert series, It's always a good time with lots of beautiful families with their beautiful babies running around enjoying the grounds and tunes. Photo ops galore.

As I was writing the above, my daughter stopped by, not unusual winter or summer, but the rounds of drop by guests definitely do increase in warmer months. My friends Frieda and Brandon followed soon after and before I knew it, three hours had passed and the beginning of an art project I'd been talking about for a few weeks.

I have this idea for a photo series turning boobs into representational gardens. Brandon was so kind as to allow me to color in his bird tats and build a little flower feeder for them.

Now I have to go deal with those strawberries and a few of those less exciting tasks I mentioned.

Hope all is well with all my friends and readers.Happy summer!XXKHT

"I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer.
My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that
solitude presses against my lips. " ~Violette Leduc,

01 June 2008

Hung the sculpture today. It went very well, and a big thank you to my friend and daughter's roommate Adam DeMasi for his assistance. He went above and beyond, risking life and limb (pun intended) to get the piece up safely and aesthetically.

For years I've been watching these stats and trying to learn as much as I can from them. For instance I've studied what I think people are most attracted to in my work from their comments. I've learned something about what makes for popular searches on the web - mainly by extreme guesswork because the one thing Pbase is waaay behind on is detailed statistics. They offer nothing like the information available through site meter and the like.

It's too bad, and I'm definitely tempted to go elsewhere. But then again - 420,000+ hits is no small change. This little number: Spooky Fish Tree has 16,576 hits all by itself, making it my most viewed page in history (probably from now until forever).

Without actively soliciting, I've sold prints to website visitors and I even helped out Bread & Puppet while they were on a national tour with no press kit by offering images of their work to newspapers for free (it was the least I could do).

I realize it's probably past the appropriate time to create a Kimberley-Hannaman-Taylor or Artiface Galleries.com proper, but when and if I do, I think I'll leave the galleries at Pbase alone for the long haul. Like Major Tom and Hal, they can perpetually float in space abstractly hoping to connect with whatever finds them out there.

29 March 2008

Tonight, I participated in my first official art auction, both as an artist, and as a bidder.

The auction was organized by Arts Alive! and despite not being able to locate any info in the usual advertising venues, I was pleasantly surprised to find hundreds of people in attendance when I arrived.

The last event, First Fifty, in which I put a large mixed media piece priced at $1,200, did not get the kind of exposure I'd hoped for, and so this round, I put a very small piece in the show in response to the warning on the application that, "because this is the first Arts Alive auction, we're not sure how much people will be willing to spend, so offering work in the $100 and under range is wise, unless you're ok with it not selling." Plus there was an additional fee for adding a reserve.

Following their advice, I entered a small mixed media piece, that is essentially a miniature version of the last show's piece Dead To Rights, but this time it is just one picture of a soldier mannequin, strung inside a cigar box with an artist's figure model inside.

To my horror, my piece went up second in a line of over one hundred items, and the first item did not sell. I turned red as a beet as they brought around what looked to me now in this giant venue, a minuscule representation of my work - I may as well have submitted a postage stamp.

The auctioneer began the bidding at $15, and it was bid on immediately followed by $20, $25, $30, $35...pause.....$40...$45. "Do I hear $50? We're at $45....going...going SOLD!" To my friend Hillary sitting right next to me.

I almost felt sorry for the lovely person (who I could not see) that bid it up and didn't win.

Plus, I really didn't expect it to sell for more than $30 and in the end, relative to some of the huge, beautiful paintings that sold for under $200, I made out like a bandit. I couldn't believe some of the pieces that sold for so little last night. Even with no money to spare, I bid on a few just because I couldn't stand to let them go unsold for such incredible prices.

Good thing I didn't have any money to spare, or tomorrow morning would find me with more art than I could hang on my walls.

It was great big fun and a learning experience for next year. I'll have to put something a little bigger and better in, but not worth more than $100.

29 February 2008

Nevermind I didn't clean a thing; which is what I always start out thinking I'm going to do, and then pick up some odd or end that's been left out and that'll get me thinking and before I know it, I'm ignoring my chores while making a bigger mess from the throes of creation.

That was today's synopsis.

Still, I took short mental health breaks here and there and while doing so I advertised on Craig's List looking for a used tricycle for my Sculptcycle project.

The first is a support blog that highlights and promotes LGBT artists. I can't tell yet if they're local because I didn't notice a location, but I found them through Craig's List Vermont Artist's Discussion Board (at least I think it was Vermont - CL is funny that way).

The second is more of an inspirational site for mixed media artists with challenges, and opportunities to connect and reflect in addition to a weekly featured artist.

One of their challenges is "Leap" in honor of this special day. In response I offer an old but favorite photo of mine, taken at Bolton Pots (potholes) - a popular nearby swimming hole.

What with my seeds arriving and spring around the corner, I can almost taste summer coming. This pic brings it right home.

XXKHT

Jacked from Inspire Me Thursday, because it not only is about this day, but also includes specifically my birthday. I've often used it to remind others of the date.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Save February, she alone
Hath eight days and a score
Til leap year gives her one day more.